The Beginning of the End
by Ditto Redeaux
Summary: I wrote a thing, just accept it my lovelies. Contains Major Character Death. An early Magella story explaining her origins.
1. Two Hearts

_I wrote a thing for pre-mittens, just accept it my lovelies._

_D.R._

* * *

He held her hand through the ultrasound. She had fainted only hours before, and she had been frantic about the health of their unborn child.

"Is she alright?" Rose struggled to see the screen that the men were openly gawking at,

"She has two hearts." He managed at long last, as the doctor, one of their own from the Torchwood Institute continued to gape at the screen.

"What do you mean she has two hearts?" Her own heart was clenching painfully at her husband's expression, a mixture of horror and wonder. She had lost her last baby, her's and the Doctor's. She was never meant to carry such a child.

"It means-"

She already knew what it meant, "No!" She cut across him, releasing his hand as if she'd been burnt. "Don't you dare, take it back. She can't be! Maybe they're twins! Just have another look, alright? How could you have missed something like that?" The doctor shook his head handing her the print out.

"I'm so sorry Rose. I didn't think-" The chances were so low that he hadn't even considered them.

"No, shut up, you're not even the proper one, you're not him, you weren't here last time, neither of you were, you've got no right!"

"Rose." He reached for her, flinching as she recoiled in disgust,

"No, get out!" She cried lobbing a kidney shaped bed pan at him.

He was on the roof of the hospital when she found him. He held his hand out to her and she took it, sitting down next to him and tucking herself under his arm.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I'm just so scared."

"Me too." He said with a heavy sigh.

"They brought me chips." His face lit up with a smile and he plucked one from the offered bag. A speck of light streaked across their field of view, "Do you miss it?"

"Nah. D'you?"

She shook her head, "I thought I would, but being here with you, sitting here eating cold chips, this is so much better than I ever dreamed possible."

They sat there in silence, shoulder to shoulder. "Have you decided on a name?" She shook her head silently. "Ah well, we still have time."

"You still have his memories, right?" She asked tipping her head up, "Tell me about it?"

"About what?"

She snuggled tighter into his side, "Everything."

He chuckled, "I don't think there's enough time in the world for that." Still, he sobered quickly and started "I grew up on a planet called Gallifrey."

Hours later neither had moved until Rose suddenly doubled over, clutching at the bulge of her stomach. "Something's wrong with the baby."

"No, it's too early!" He caught her before she could pitch forward off of the roof. "I need some help up here!" He shouted as she cried out in pain.


	2. Just a Watch

"She's perfect." Rose was sitting propped up in the bed, exhausted, but smiling softly at the bundle of pink puckered skin in her arms.

"Two hearts and all?"

"Two hearts and all." A grin spread across his face as she caught his hand and squeezed it. After hours of labor, a healthy baby girl had been delivered at dawn, and they named her Aurora. She had ten fingers, ten toes, and two hearts, and for that moment they were blissfully happy, but a few short months later it ended.

"Get to the base!" The street exploded further down the block, the heat washed over them as they dodged a flying street sign. He grabbed Rose's hand and towed her along with him. The couple dashed inside as the world shook around them. "Barricade the door!" He ordered.

Rose grabbed his arm, "Wait!" She cried, "Mum, Pete, and Mickey are still out there, we can't just leave them!"

He spun, gripping her shoulders. "Rose, it's too late." Screams pierced the air beyond the door. The Time War had come to their universe, sweeping their world into the hell it had become.

"No, they were right behind us!" She could see the truth of it in his eyes though "No!" She shrieked trying to spin back towards the door, he caught her though, holding her to him as she wept whispering apologies into her hair.

He led her back into the room he had been working on his projects in at the institute, and pulled a sheet off of one of the work benches. Her breath caught in her throat.

"That's a dimension canon." She stood there, the child in her arms gurgling happily around a fob watch that she was sucking at. He didn't respond to her. "I thought it was destroyed."

"It was, I built a new one. This one's a bit different."

"But you said-"

"Rose look outside, it's all ending anyways! Time is bleeding through the seams of this universe." He was practically yelling and she shrunk back a bit.

"Don't say that, we'll figure it out, it will be fine." Even to her own ears though it sounded too much like she was trying too hard. "What's that then?" He had pulled out several tools and started to work on something else that had been under the covers. "It looks like part of a cyber-man helmet." He shook his head crossing to her

"Rose, do you know what this is?" He lifted the watch away from the baby.

"Of course, it's just an old pocket watch you said so yourself." She hoped that it came out with more confidence than she felt but she felt so very removed suddenly, as though she were talking to him from a long ways away.

"It's not just a watch. It's part of a chameleon arch. Timelords can do this thing where they change every cell in their body."

"Right, you did that once, regeneration."

He shook his head, voice growing impatient with the need to make her understand,"Not just their appearance, but they can change their very biology, they can become human." Her arms tightened around the baby girl in her arms. "Their essence get's stored in this." He clicked it open.

"But it's just a watch." Tears choked her voice.

"No Rose, it's so much more. Don't you see? We can save her!"

"You knew this was going to happen all along, didn't you?"

He had had his suspicions, he had seen the signs, he had known there was little he could do, "I hoped I was wrong."

"Did he know, the Doctor, the proper one, did he know?" He didn't look up from what he was doing, "Answer me!"

The brief look he gave her was answer enough and she sagged against one of the support columns. "Oh my god, we're all going to die." She murmured

"No." the look he gave her was sharp, "I'm not going to let that happen. I swear to you Rose, I'm not going to let that happen."


	3. Pencil in a Mug

He seized her about the middle when she lunged towards the baby. "No stop, it's hurting her." Rose sobbed, beating against his chest as he turned her into him. "You never said it would hurt!"

"Of course it hurts. Every cell in her body is changing." He was crying too, tears dripping into her yellow hair. "Of course it hurts." Eventually the pained screams tapered off and he sighed in relief. "It's over." He breathed, loosening his arms.

"What do you mean?" She ripped herself away from him, "Is she?"

"She's fine, she's just asleep, are you ready?" Rose shook her head.

"I don't think I ever will be." She managed, still she let him take her hand and guide her to where she lay. "Will she remember us?"

"No." He answered a little too quickly, but she couldn't let herself question it, couldn't let herself ponder over which was the crueler outcome.

"What is that?"

He shook up a bottle filled with a shimmering gold liquid that she hadn't noticed before and gently stroked her cheek, encouraging her to latch on and suckle even in her sleep,

"They're called huon particles. They'll ensure that she's safe." He assured before adding half under his breath as she bent to kiss her forehead even as it started to shimmer slightly, "Like a pencil in a mug." He had spent months carefully deriving those particles from the coral of the TARDIS.

"What? What does that have to do with anything?" She asked straightening, alarmed.

"Nothing, I just meant a pencil in a mug is safe!" He protested.

Rose shook her head blankly, but her child and bassinet disappearing from the table broke off any thoughts she might have, and with a strangled sob she clung to him.


	4. One Last Time

Rose turned back to him before she stepped onto the faux teleportation pad, realizing that he hadn't followed her.

"You're not coming with us?" She stepped down towards him.

"Rose, you have to go now, it's your only chance."

"I'm not leaving you, are you mad?" She screamed over the din of commotion as the building gave another particularly violent shudder.

"You'll have the chance to grow old Rose, to find someone else. To have a family. Please, you have to go now." His hand was hovering over the button that would engage the dimension canon, saving those there.

She pressed down quickly on his hand and captured his protests with a kiss, "They wouldn't be you." She murmured pulling away as the others vanished.

"Now what?" She asked, typing in a command for the computer to bring up a view of one of the outside cameras. The sky was still a sickly black red though the screen gave a dull view of it. She couldn't see anything in the smoke.

"Now we wait." He settled onto the floor, tipping his head back against the wall.

"What do you think happened to them. Where do you think we sent them?"  
"I don't know." He sounded so drained, so old.

"You mean I could have died anyways?" She spun away from the screen to look at him.

"You could have lived." He corrected. "Here either way you die."

"Yeah, but…" She shook her head, "A bit pointless now isn't it?" He smiled wearily back at her, and she dropped to the floor and crawled into his arms, looking up at the stars that were projected on the walls and ceiling around them from the nightlight they had recieved from Mickey at their baby shower. "What about Aurora?"

"She's safe, I promise," He pressed a kiss to the side of her head.

"It's getting quieter." She whispered unnecessarily.

He cocked his head, sure enough it was, "Well we ripped a hole in space time and the universe is collapsing into the void, yeah I'd say it's going to get a bit quiet." She smacked his arm for his cheek. "Rose." He began seriously.

"Hush, just tell me you love me, and that we'll be okay."

"I do, I love you so much." And it became a mantra that eventually faded as their breathing evened out.

It was eerily quiet, even the screaming had completely stopped, and the building had ceased in its shaking when he opened his eyes. Rose, his Rose, was curled in his arms, her head pillowed on his suit. He carefully disentangled himself and moved to investigate what had become of the world. The screen showed only static, white noise, nothing of the outside world. He crawled back to her, shaking her shoulder, "Rose, it's over. We're all that's left." She sat up slowly, taking it all in.

"So this is it then." He looked askance at her. "Rose, I don't know what will happen to us past those doors, but-"

"We'll face it together, whatever it is…" She broke across him. "We'll be together, yeah?" She promised stepping up to his side. His lips quirked into a smile.

"Rose Tyler, it would be my honor." He reached out his hand and their fingers entangled one last time. The door swung open and they stepped out into the bright white oblivion.


End file.
